JUEVES, EL DOS DE AGOSTO DE VENTE DOCE

Just before disassembling my props today, I thought I'd get a photo of my 'Polemical Alchemy' set-up in reference to an 1895 photograph of James Ensor in his studio:

"...The polemical assertion of the act of painting as a subject of aesthetics is more interesting than formalities of visual representation manifested by painting. We live in a digital age, where we could easily create graphics and visual aids through computer software and hardware yet the persistence of painting is still a mystery or perhaps an alchemy. Like James Ensor's paintings of death skulls/bones come to life or Matthew Couper's paintings about turning shit into gold, the alchemical power of the very act of painting is undeniable - transforming material entity into a metaphysical state..." - Jevijoe Vitug

DOMINGO, EL UNO DE JULIO, VEINTE-DOCE

A Colby-inspired poster:

MIERCOLES, EL VIENTIUNO DE MARZO, VENINTE-DOCE
Yesterday at my talk, I mentioned Bosch's painting in the Prado, 'Lubbert Das/Extracting the Stone of Madness' and how it related to my retablo '1994' (see below). Click on the link above to see the alternative translation of Lubbert Das that influenced my painting.

LUNES, EL VEINTIUNO DE JUNIO, VEINTE-DIEZ
Happy Winter Solstice! I've just finished a copy of a print I made in 2004 called 'Pictish Adam and Eve'. The print (left) was an etching but only made it to an edition of 5 as the 'creve bites' (I believe that's what they are called) weakened the etched lines and many of them collapsed, making for a very ugly print of missing lines, mottled tones and embossing rather than ink lines. This was caused by me using a needle to scribe the lines and having too many lines close together, weakening the 'proud' areas of the plate.
Someone was very interested in acquiring this image, but since the last print of the edition was sold in 2006, I decided to redraw the 'print' for them (right). I'm happy how it came out and I like the idea of a drawing mimicking a print rather than the other way around (a stigma that burdens printmaking). Even though I was constantly sharpening my pencil every 4 or 5 lines, I couldn't get the incredibly fine detail that is seen on the etching. I'd be happy to make single etching prints just to get the fine lines.
To accentuate the etching-look of the drawing, I added toned lines around the frame of the print to show where the edge of the plate is and also random lines and marks on the backdrop of the image to mimic the nuances of the original plate tone.

JUEVES, EL ONCE DE MARZO, VEINTE-DIEZ
Another Chardin monkey comparison, this time with his own work. On the left is a portrait of artist, art dealer, collector and teacher, Joseph Aved, painted by Chardin in 1740. Aved was apparently both Chardin and Boucher's tutor and by the looks of it, the model for The Monkey as Antiquarian (right; circa 1740). While Aved is pensively reading from a heafty tome, the monkey excitedly studies his new find, a coin - ready to be placed in a coin album sitting on the table. There are two versions of this painting - the one below and another one, reversed with an oval framed vignette. I'll post an image of that one tomorrow.

MIERCOLES, EL DIEZ DE MARZO, VEINTE-DIEZ
A comparison between yesterday's Chardin Le Singe Peintre (right, 1740) and Francois Boucher's Self-Portrait At Easel (left, 1720, also in The Louvre, Paris). After looking at Chardin's painting monkey, I remembered a portrait of an artist painting that I'd seen recently in a book, a work similar in composition to the Chardin. After a bit of hunting, I found the Boucher self-portrait, painted when he was eighteen years old.
Boucher and Chardin were contemporaries but I haven't seen or read any references to a competitive spirit between them, yet it seems there is a striking resemblance between the two paintings so I can't but help thinking that Chardin is perhaps parodying the ostentatiousness of Boucher's Rococo paintings. From what I've seen of Chardin's paintings in the flesh, his work had very little to do with the conventions of Rococo painting from the Baroque period. Perhaps it's Chardin's comment (as a stylistic outsider), on his 'take' of Rococo painting at the time.

MARTES, EL NUEVE DE MARZO, VEINTE-DIEZ
I've included here a painting I completed a month after arriving back in New Zealand after five months of travelling around USA, Europe and Hong Kong. The painting is called 'Travel Fund' (1000mm x 800mm) and is based on a painting by Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin called 'Le Singe Peintre' (The Monkey Painter, executed around 1740). The image on the left is photographed from the original painting in The Louvre, in Paris. (frame included).
My version comments on my want to raise more funds to travel again, so in turn becoming a painting monkey, gathering those funds (if only it was as easy as painting!) - a means to an end. The other reason for using the Chardin was to update the parody of the 'monkey' paintings (I believe he painted several versions in different settings and vocations) and look at it in contemporary terms of visual engagement outside of New Zealand's artistic culture, looking at Western influence and to resist becoming, as Philip Guston puts it in the introduction to his 1978 Minnesota lecture, a painting monkey.

MIERCOLES, EL VIENTITRES DE DICIEMBRE, DOS MIL NUEVE
Something I whipped up for the festive wrestling fans out there.

SABATO, DE VIENTIUNO DE NOVIEMBRE, DOS MIL NUEVE
Quali-oke

MIERCOLES, EL DIECIOCHO DE NOVIEMBRE, DOS MIL NUEVE
After Giotto, me as Enrico Scrovegni.